


boabs of kimberley

by pentipus



Category: Extraction (2020)
Genre: Bonding, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, parenting, the outback, tub chicken - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23908837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentipus/pseuds/pentipus
Summary: Ovi learns that father doesn't have to mean fear.
Relationships: Tyler Rake and Ovi Mahajan Jr.
Comments: 42
Kudos: 151





	boabs of kimberley

Ovi stared uncertainly at the chicken perched on the edge of the bathtub and the chicken stared back. He hugged his backpack to his chest and turned when he heard Tyler huffing behind him, struggling through the door with a duffle bag in each hand.

"You're alright there, mate," he said, dumping the bags on the dusty floor of the shack. "Don't worry yourself."

"There's a-"

Tyler held up his hand. "That's your brother now."

Ovi stared at Tyler, then back at the chicken, he didn't want to argue. "Ok." He felt a trickle of sweat between his shoulder blades, the north Australian heat sweltering in this tiny corner of the outback. Ovi was used to his air conditioned private school, his air conditioned villa, ice cold watermelon juice in clear plastic cups, the cold leather seats of chauffeur driven cars.

Here the heat made the land fuzzy, beating down on the corrugated roof and through the glass walls, an orange tinged breeze blew an endless stream of dust through the open doors. Ovi looked around, at the functional kitchen, the open bathroom, Tyler’s bed in one corner, the chicken.

Tyler grunted and lit a cigarette, gestured at a door to the side of the bathroom. "There's a room through there, it's yours."

Ovi looked at the doorway, a door jamb made from soft brown wood, and beyond, what looked like a newly built extension to the shack. He couldn't be sure but there was something fresh about the wooden floor, the neatly placed slats of the walls, that made him think perhaps Tyler had made it just for him.

"It’s not quite what you're used to, I'm sure," Tyler said, taking a drag of the cigarette, "but it's yours. I'll keep the chicken out of it."

Ovi realised he was joking and smiled, flashing Tyler his white teeth. He wanted to say something profound, something that communicated his gratitude, his debt, but there were no words. Instead he stepped forward, reaching out to press his fingers to the newly built door jamb. The room smelled new, smelled of drying resin and gently warping wood. There was a low bed, built by hand, and a bookshelf, a second hand desk and a multicoloured rug on the floor, woven from the offcuts of clothing. Ovi recognised the rug, they made them in the factories back home. But no, not home, back there, the other place.

When he'd agreed to go to Kimberley with Tyler he had been told that there was not much but a spot of land in the outback, a smallholding that produced vegetables and eggs, and a town some four miles away where you could buy detergent and rent movies. Tyler had said it in a grumble, looking like he felt foolish for even suggesting it, for taking the boy away from his wealth and comfort to live in a hut in the red Aussie outback.

Ovi had sat stunned, his mind immediately and vividly conjuring an image of Tyler's ramshackle home. He imagined a wooden porch with a rocking chair, a table to clean guns, something like a bear’s skin spread out as a rug on the floor. Some Americanised version of who Tyler was.

Of course he would go, of course he would.

He placed his backpack on the bed and turned back to Tyler to thank him, but he had already shuffled off, cigarette smoke hanging in the air behind him. Ovi heard the clink of a mug before Tyler called, “You wanna cuppa, mate?”

Over the next six months Ovi filled his bookshelf with novels and textbooks bought from the town, ordered in by the owner of the little bookshop there. He learned which spiders could be left to dwell in the corners of his bedroom, and which had to be carefully removed and tossed into the bush. He learned to search the scrub around the house for eggs, how to strip a gun, how to fish, how to whip off the top of a glass beer bottle with a hunting knife.

The first time he'd done it Tyler let out a cheer that was almost a roar, and clapped Ovi on the back. Ovi had never seen him so overjoyed so he grabbed a second bottle for Tyler and tried again, smashing the bottle and covering himself in bubbling, sticky beer.

"Better luck next time," Tyler had said with a laugh in his voice, hauling himself out of his chair to pluck another beer from the cooler.

Tyler was never rough, never brusk, never angry. At first he would drink whiskey in the evenings and sometimes, Ovi noticed, in the mornings too. But during the third week Ovi caught Tyler pouring what remained of the whiskey into the sink, tossing the empty bottle into the bin. He was calm and methodical, and once the whiskey was out of his system he sometimes smiled and was gentle when he corrected Ovi’s grip on a handgun, when he had to untangle Ovi’s knotted fishing wire. He loved his chickens and had a dog named Handsome, who would sleep in the bed with Tyler every night. He also turned out to be a surprisingly good cook and they ate well, Ovi shot up three inches in that first half a year. The work on the land built muscles across Ovi’s back and down his arms, the bottoms of his bare feet red-brown from the earth and strong as leather. When they went into town he would catch glimpses of himself in the windows of the stores they passed, tall and strapping, his big t-shirts finally fitting across his chest. He felt strong, rooted into the earth like a boab at Tyler's side.

In the evenings they sat on deckchairs out in the heat, listening to the radio under the stars. Ovi would read Tyler extracts from whatever book he was reading, his accent particular and careful with every word, with an occasional twang that he recognised as Tyler’s own voice in his. He would read until he heard the steady breath of a man gently sleeping, then he would sit in silence, the book open on his lap, listening to the nighttime sounds of the outback, of the great earth about them.

Ovi never called Tyler dad, never called him father; those words meant fear, they meant shame. But Ovi loved him as he knew he should love a father and settled every night knowing he was loved in return. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is all I want, all I desire. Allow me this little pleasure, please. I beg of you.


End file.
